


Like the Snake that Eats it's Tail

by John_lzhc



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-18
Updated: 2011-04-18
Packaged: 2017-10-18 08:08:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/186765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/John_lzhc/pseuds/John_lzhc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They move in circles, each end becoming the beginning, always chasing but never quite catching up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like the Snake that Eats it's Tail

**Author's Note:**

> Written for themadlurker's [Waiting for the Doctor](http://themadlurker.livejournal.com/47033.htm) ficmeme

The first times they meet she kills them both. They go from there.

-

For as long as she's been travelling the time-streams, she's never had a relationship so temporally fractured as this, so it takes her a long time to start seeing the loops.

The Doctor assumes she can operate the TARDIS, and is surprised when she can't.

The Doctor teaches her to fly the TARDIS.

The Doctor assumes she _can't_ pilot the TARDIS, and is surprised when she can.

Repeat from step one.

-

“It's alright, you'll see me again”

She has no idea why he says that. He's known her for three days and she's just stabbed him in the back – literally. She has no idea why he looks at her so _fondly_ as he dies. It haunts her for a while, that contented smile, especially the next time they meet.

-

Sometimes he starts off very cautions, studding every move, every word, until he knows when she is, what he can say. Spoilers. When she catches herself developing the same behaviour she realises she can guess how far along he is not by how much he trusts her (because that seems to fluctuate) but by how he watches what he says.

-

He makes a few digs about her keeping a diary when this... whatever it is... is still new (to her). Except they're not digs, he actually expects her to have one, and it's not so new she doesn’t suspect the beginning of a loop. She watches it.

He buys her a blue, panel covered writing book when they cross paths in the markets of Navaros, paying the vendor’s extortionate prise without question. (maybe the book is temporally significant, maybe he's just grabby at the moment).

“Here. Happy birthday, or significant solar event, or something”

“You shouldn't have.”

“Don't mention it.”

“No, what exactly do you expect me to do with a paper book?”

“Keep a diary”

“I always make a point of loosing diaries”

But he smiles that smile that means he's already seen her contradict herself, and she _knows_ she'll never loose this one.

-

“Once upon a time, there was an ordinary, boring, underachieving woman called Donna Noble, and for a few glorious moments she was the most important woman in the whole of creation. Space and time bent it's self around her to preserve her existence, wrapped it's self in knots to keep her safe and sane.”

“What happened to her?”

“She saved the universe. Every universe. But the way she did it wasn't something the human brain can ever handle. So she had to forget. Had to go back to her ordinary, boring life as an ordinary, boring temp.”

“Do you miss her?”

“I miss all of you sooner or later”

“But her more than others? Donna Noble...”

“I miss the ones made to forget, because they don't really exist any more. Not as I knew them. The one's I can't ever go back to, like the ones that die.

“But the more I go back to the ones I _can_ , the closer I come to loosing them”

“So you run. To preserve them.”

“Yes. If I want to be able to go back, I have to stay away”

“You'll always have me to come back to”

“But the longer we do this, the sooner you'll be out of reach”

“Doctor, you will _always_ have me to come back to.”

-

It's always been a comfort to her, knowing that no matter what happens to her, no matter where she drops and taker her last breath, _he_ at least will not have to die alone, he will have her with him. She feels a little cheated, as she handcuffs him to the wall and sets up the chair for herself, that she never had the comfort for herself.

-

It takes a long while for the Judoon to catch up with her, but they inevitably do. The murder is a timelord is a very serious offence indeed, the murder of the _last_ timelord could well be argued as genocide, extinctionism. Even if he _does_ stand as a character reference at the trial.

She's with him when they come, and she's scared shitless that this ruins everything. Because she regrets killing him like a sick ache in her chest, now that she knows him, now she knows why he smiled so gladly up at her.

So she makes up a story - a lesser crime, she wasn't really involved with it, she was framed – and begs him to help her. He smiles widely, fondly...

“No.”

“What?!”

The come, and they take her, cuffed and tagged and restrained. She just stairs at the Doctor.

“Do you know who I am?” Please, please, not yet.

“Yes. My last angel” And he kisses her cheek, and waves her off. It's six months before nineteen forty one is on the phone.

-

She's used to his caution, to the reverence - fear – he owes continuity, so she's not _all that_ surprised when he shows up in the library and acts blank. A little annoyed perhaps, it's not going to make convincing Mr Lux to trust him any easier. But this is a new version for her, and perhaps he's tetchy this time round.

“You're doing a very good job pretending like you don't know me, I'm assuming there a reason.”

“I have a fairly good one, actually”

It's been so long, she's never had to introduce herself. She forgets that she ever will. _Hopes_ she never will: how can she possibly live up to everything she is?

“Doctor, please tell me you know who I am”

“Who are you?”

Repeat from step one.

-

He complains that she's deliberately secretive, intentionally misleading, and makes a game out of their relationship. But that's not fair, he started is as much as she did.

“Can I trust you?”

“If you like, Miss Song, if you like.”

-

She trusts him more than anyone in the universe, and he's said things to her that he thought he'd never tell a living soul. But oh, the secrets they keep.

“This means you've always known”

The first times they meet she kills them both.

“It's OK, it's not over for you. You'll see me again”

Repeat from step one.

The loop continues, infinite.

“You watch us run.”


End file.
